Lovely, Dark and Deep
Page 25
I’ll threaten him if I have to. That is, if he’ll even talk to me again after this afternoon.
Dr. Williams leans forward and pats my knee. “Wren, if anyone can get through to him, I have a feeling it’s probably you.”
He’s got to be somebody’s nice dad. Either that or a saint. He squeezes my icy hand.
I take a huge breath and feel an odd relief, elation almost, like finally something might be okay. My shoulders are hiked up near my ears. I force them down, try to relax.
Cal’s bedroom door opens. The nurse comes out, carrying a bundle of sheets.
“He’s showered and in a fresh bed. Probably already asleep,” she says to Dr. Williams. Nods at me. I smile back. I’m so thankful to her for helping him. “Where can I set these?”
I point her toward the laundry room.
Dr. Williams turns to me. “I gave him something to help him sleep. He said he hasn’t been sleeping through the night. You’re sure you can stay?”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here if he needs anything.”
“Good.” He stands up. “I can tell you’re up to this, Wren.”
This makes me wonder if he thinks I’m not up to it and is trying to use reverse psychology on me or something.
I’m up to it.
I say it to myself a couple of times. I am. I feel strong all of a sudden. Fierce.
They leave, and I clean the rest of the house like mad, as quietly as I can. I have so much energy I’m almost frantic with it, but instead of letting it tangle me up inside, I let it out, use it, turn it into something good.
Once the kitchen’s clean, I pull a few well-splattered and worn cookbooks from a small shelf next to the refrigerator. The fridge is too empty even for stone soup, but after paging through the cookbooks, I find a recipe for spice bread that someone’s starred, a woman’s handwriting, written boys’ favorite in the margin. Maybe Cal’s mom. I dig around until I find what I need and throw it together. The spices in the heating oven smell purposeful.
From time to time I sneak back to his room and look in. Sleeping.
I’m just about to try home again, tell them what’s going on, when a car pulls into the driveway.
Cars.
The Wagoneer. Cal’s Jeep.
Dad and Zara.
They come up to the house, arms full, back-lit by the moon. I run out to meet them, ridiculously happy they’re here. Dad’s carrying some extra clothes for me and Zara’s got two heavy-looking grocery bags.
“Dr. Williams and your dad crossed paths in town, and Meredith came to the studio,” Zara says when she steps in.
“We fought.” I start to cry.
Dad sets everything down. Pulls me into a hug. “How’s Cal?”
I shake my head, and suddenly my whole body feels weird, loose, like my bones are more elastic than solid. I can’t talk a minute. It’s been a rough afternoon.
He lets me out of the hug but keeps an arm wrapped around my shoulders and walks me to the couch.
Zara sets the food out in the kitchen.
“John, this is a nice house,” she says, pulling things out of the bags. “We should whip ours into slightly better shape.”
My dad makes a harrumphing sound.
Zara brings us all water. Sits on the other side of me. She said “our house.” Weird to hear, but it feels like it might be right, okay.
“Dr. Williams came,” I say, after a quick sip. “He wants me to help convince Cal to go on some new drug—”
My voice wavers. I look up at them both. A look flies between them. It’s a lot of responsibility. I take a big breath. “He thinks it will make him feel better?”
Dad shoots Zara a look and squeezes my shoulders again.
“He’ll listen to you, I’m sure,” he says, kissing me on the top of the head. He holds me tight until I can get it a little more together.
“Well, Meredith hit the road,” Zara says, patting my leg. “We tried to talk her into staying the night and leaving in the morning, but she said she’d stop along the way if she needed to. Said to tell you she’d call you soon.”
Unlikely. I close my eyes. Dad keeps squeezing me.
Zara stands again. “I’m going to check on that lovely bread you have going. It smells fantastic, and was, by the way, a thoroughly solid thing to do in the face of a crisis.”
I look at my hands in my lap. My cuticles are ragged, but I did something solid. I smile a second. Something solid in the face of a crisis.
“We figured you could use a few things,” my dad starts, “if you’re going to stay here a day or two?”
I feel an enormous rush of love for both of them. I start to cry again.
“I’m proud of you, Wren,” my dad says, choking up a little himself, squeezing me. “You’re proving to be a pretty sturdy person.”
Damn tears. I say nothing. Don’t feel very sturdy.
“So,” Zara says, peering in from the kitchen, “if you don’t mind, I thought I’d stay too. Tonight. Your dad and I were talking, and we thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you had someone with you, in case you need anything.”
For a split second I’m hurt. They’re saying one thing, doing another. They don’t trust me to be here, alone, to deal with something hard. But then it dawns on me, maybe I’m not the one they’re worried about, maybe they think Cal’s really that bad off, that I might need help.
I nod at Zara. I want her to stay. She slips her boots back on and walks out to the truck, comes back in with her overnight bag.
“Come on,” I say, slipping out of my dad’s warmth, “you can stay in Cal’s parents’ room.”
She sets her things in the room and looks around a minute, appreciating the larger, nicer version of the same room she stays in when she’s at our place. Her place, now, too.
We go back out to my dad. He slips a book from the middle of the stack of clothes he brought.
Larkin.
Winks at me.
“Just in case you can’t sleep,” he says. He clears his throat again. “I read a few of these,” he says, “and I know why you like him. He has the same quarrel with life that you have.”
It’s a simple statement but may be one of the most true things that’s ever passed between my dad and me. I hold the book close.
The three of us make a light dinner from the food Zara brought, then cut into the spice bread. After we’re done, I leave Zara and Dad on the couch, talking in low voices, and slip in to Cal’s room.
still
here
THE ROOM’S COOL AND QUIET, the moon high at the window, playing off the water, casting a velvet light. Cal opens his eyes a minute when I slip in, and the smallest smile plays at the edge of his mouth, his face less drawn, more relaxed.
“You never do what you’re told.”
“Too late to start now.”
“Your friend was impressed.”
“Sorry,” I blush.
“Don’t be.”
He lifts an arm, the blankets, makes a place along the edge of the bed for me to slip in next to him. Warm.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, putting my hand on his heart, feeling the warm rise and fall of his chest. “We made food. Dad and Zara are here with me.”
He shakes his head. “Tired. How long was I out?”
“A couple of hours. Cal, Dr. Williams—”
He lets out a breath, opens his eyes again, takes me in, closes them.
“He talked to you.”
“You have to do it, try it. He thinks—”
“I didn’t think I needed it.”
“You need it.” I push up on an elbow so I can look at him. “Try anything he suggests. If you don’t, I’m going to start midnight jogging again. Please. You need it.”
He looks at me. Reaches up, pulls a lock of my hair hanging down like a bell rope.
“Okay.”
“Okay? Just like that? It can’t be that easy.”
“You’re powerfully persuasive.”
He runs a warm hand
down the side of my neck. A smile climbs into his eyes before they close again.
I lie there a minute and watch him sleep. Trace the length of his nose with my finger. Then I slip out of the bed as softly as possible and make a nest for myself on his couch. Wrap up in a blanket and lie there, quiet in the space between Cal and the wide night sea.
For the first time in a while I think I’m okay. Anchored. Held together. It’s a feeling I tiptoe toward, careful, in case it’s about to slip away, leave me dissipated in that dark blank place.
It doesn’t.
It’s still here.
I’m still here.
I open Larkin. Read what I can by moonlight. I skim my favorites, whispering some aloud to myself. Let the rhythm of the language lead me. I stop at “The Trees.”
Last year is dead, he says, looking at the lush-topped trees released from winter’s death.
Time to begin afresh.
I close the book. Lay it in my lap. Behind me, Cal’s steady breath. Through the windows the ocean booms against the cliff.
An echo.
Afresh, afresh, afresh.
acknowledgments
I WROTE THIS BOOK after the sudden death of someone I loved. She was a poet, and on more than one occasion declared, Larkin’s my man. After her death I turned to him. I’d read Larkin before, but as with all works of art, it bore up differently from a changed perspective. For a time, his poems bridged the otherwise impassable distance between us. If you haven’t already read the work of Philip Larkin, his Collected Poems is surely on the shelf of your closest bookstore. Larkin draws a fine map and should not be missed.
Once I had a draft, a lot of people stepped in to help me make it into a book. To my friends and family: your love is an incredible verb. To my first readers: Matthea Harvey, Michael Moran, Kathleen Jesme, Stephanie Colgan, Sunita Apte, Zoë Pellegrino, Cathy Burns, my mother, and my sisters Kelly and Bryn—your enthusiasm and encouragement kept me from stuffing the manuscript under the bed. Kelly, I’m pretty sure I can still hear your typewriter way back in 1982 clickety-clacking my puffy-handwritten words (heart-dotted i’s!) from Mead notebooks onto manuscript paper in the off-hours.
I’m grateful to my editor, Alexandra Cooper, for her sharp eye, finely tuned ear, and for seeing Wren so clearly and with such compassion. Working with you has been a joy. Thanks to Amy Rosenbaum, Lizzy Bromley, Justin Chanda, and the rest of the team at Simon & Schuster. To my lovely agent, Sara Crowe: endless gratitude for your cheer, your patience, and your unwavering support.
Finally, thanks to Maeve and Noel for loaning me out to all those people in my imagination and for not complaining about it too much—and Doug—you keep the boat afloat, the larder stocked, the bed soft—how about all the rest of our years?
amy mcnamara
has an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Lovely, Dark and Deep is her first novel. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at amymcnamara.com.
Jacket design by lizzy bromley
Jacket photographs copyright © 2012 by lissy laricchia
Author photograph © doug mcnamara
simon & schuster • new york
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An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Amy McNamara All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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Book design by Lizzy Bromley
The text for this book is set in Elegant Garamond.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McNamara, Amy.
Lovely, dark and deep / Amy McNamara. —1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In the aftermath of a car accident that kills her boyfriend and throws her carefully planned future into complete upheaval, high school senior Wren retreats to the deep woods of Maine to live with the artist father she barely knows and meets a boy who threatens to pull her from her safe, hard-won exile.
ISBN 978-1-4424-3435-6 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4424-3438-7 (eBook)
[1. Depression, Mental—Fiction. 2. Grief—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M4787928686Lo 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012008258